Hanging Banners on Westnedge

By Jonathan Kleyer

Nonprofit organizations in Kalamazoo, have hung banners on the South Westnedge pedestrian overpass for years, and that tradition will continue this year with permission from the Michigan Department of Transportation.

Each year, the city clerk’s office must apply for permission from MDOT to continue the practice. This is because in 1998, jurisdiction of South Westnedge Avenue—including the pedestrian overpass—was relinquished by the city and turned over to the state in City Commission Resolution 98-40.

This change in control has done little to dampen the practice, however, as City Clerk Scott Borling noted; by December, applications had already been submitted and accepted by the city for the hanging of banners this year. The change in jurisdiction simply added a hoop to jump through for the city to allow the banners.

MDOT issues banner permits without charging a fee for the application—though the permit to hang a banner is only offered to local governing units, and not individuals or private organizations. The department also requires the local municipality that acquires a permit, to designate officials who will process applications to hang the banners.

It falls, then, to the city clerk’s office to handle the responsibility. According to Borling, the city commission could designate someone other than the city clerk and the deputy city clerk as the authorized officials, but no other city officials have been identified for the responsibility since the overpass changed jurisdictions more than a decade ago.

Hanging the banners costs a nonprofit organization $50 for each side of the overpass the organization hangs a banner on. It is a weekly charge, and the city offers to allow the banners to hang for up to four weeks depending on whether or not the organization intends to use both sides of the overpass.

Borling noted that the charge offsets the cost to the city for processing banner applications.

“Historically this revenue has either equaled or slightly surpassed the city’s processing costs,” Borling said.
Other requirements, for those seeking to hang a banner, are that the nonprofit must purchase general liability insurance—and the city has standards regarding the content of the banner.

“In terms of content, the banner can’t contain any for-profit advertising. So you can’t put like a company name or logo,” Borling explained. An advertisement for an event must also be of community-wide interest, and cannot contain offensive or derogatory materials.

To be sure nothing slips through, the application process requires organizations to submit a visual of the proposed banner.

“The organization itself also had to handle taking care of the making and hanging of the banners,” Borling said. “Most people have a sign company do it, because most sign companies, if they’re making a banner for you, they’ll also hang it for you. They usually do that for an extra fee, though.”